Billboards show way to God, church

Abe Lev, Express-News

By Abe Levy

Updated 10:31 pm, Friday, February 1, 2013

Pete Ortega stands in front of a billboard, part of a Christian billboard campaign supported by local churches and ministries, on Highway 281 north of 1604 in San Antonio on Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2013.
Photo: LISA KRANTZ, San Antonio Express-News

Pete R. Ortega put up his first billboard in 1996, a small downtown sign reminding drivers that Christ — not Santa — was at the center of Christmas.

As his savings account and managerial job with AT&T allowed, he added more billboards. He also founded Crusaders for Christ, a nonprofit group that supports his efforts to get churches to join his billboard campaign.

For years, his pitches fell on deaf ears — until recently.

Fourteen churches, ministries and one Christian business have joined Ortega's campaign.

Twelve of the 14 billboards are up and dot major thoroughfares across the city from Highway 90 and Loop 1604 on the city's South Side to Highway 281 near Outlook Parkway on the north.

Each billboard contains a Bible verse, the church sponsor's name and Ortega's web site, proGod.org.

The billboards will stay up for a year.

Ortega's goal is to foster a citywide spiritual revival. The campaign is among several he has proposed in what has become a grass-roots movement of Christians concerned about recent secular advances in society, he said.

“If we, the body of Christ, don't do something to change the direction of our country, we're going to have to answer to God,” said Ortega, 63. “We need to stop being silent.”

The key has been keeping costs down so that small-to-midsized churches can get involved. Ortega said he has built a rapport with Clear Channel Outdoors over the years, resulting in “volume discounts.”

Some churches have reported more inquiries about worship services since the billboards went up.

“A lot of your megachurches have the funds to advertise on billboards or their own signs on the highway,” said Pete Gamez, pastor of the nearly 100-member House of Living Bread Church, which sponsors a billboard. “We don't have that kind of budget.”

Clear Channel Outdoors declined comment for this story.

Besides billboards, Ortega began to work with youth pastors three years ago on organizing a citywide youth rally called “REV 7.9.” It drew an estimated 900 people in 2011 to a rally at Cornerstone Church, where Ortega attends services. A similar event is in the works for this spring at Tri-Point.

Billboard campaigns promoting everything from faith in God to agnosticism and atheism have shown up in San Antonio in recent years. Meanwhile, national surveys show the number of Americans claiming no religious affiliation is on the rise.

For those supporting this Bible-verse campaign, it is a tool in raising the church community's profile, said the Rev. Gerald Ripley, whose Abundant Life Church has a billboard that reads, “Upsize your life.”

“There's a real sense in which we're fighting for our city in the spiritual realm,” said Ripley, who led a group of Christian ministers in 2011 in opposing the extension of city benefits to domestic partners. “We want our city to be a place where God is honored, and his word is honored, and his principles are followed.”

For Ortega, the campaign fulfills a longstanding vision.

He retired two years earlier than planned and became a lay minister of sorts, self-funded in his quest to use billboards to promote his faith.

Ortega said he takes no salary from his nonprofit ministry and vows that all donations go to the cost of billboards.

He hopes a network of likeminded Christians takes shape to organize citywide events in which churches across denominations unite for Christian renewal in the city.

“Our Christian presence will be stronger as more people unite,” he said. “We must be willing to make a difference outside of the four walls of our churches for the sake of our city, our Christian faith and our love of God.”